D&D 5E No Magic Shops!

[Maxperson]

No.

Ahh, the "Nuh uh!" argument people use when they have no valid argument to make.

 

[Guest 6801328]

You seem to have misunderstood what I said. I didn't say that would look at what they would spend on items and that's it. I said they would buy those items and test them. That means that they are going to have encounters to find out how powerful the items are vs. the money spent. If the +1 sword is at 50,000 and no one buys it for their encounters, it's priced too high. If it's at 1,000 and everyone buys one, it's probably too cheap. That combined with how effective items purchased are against the encounters they play against will show the best average price for an item.

Actual investment in a character is a detriment as it will skew the combat perceptions on the effectiveness of items.



They wouldn't be simulating the purchase of items, though. They would be simulating combats with purchased items to see if gold values are proper, too cheap, or too expensive. Who buys what for the combats would help with pricing. The same would be done with standard campaigns. Once they get the combat pricing down, they would playtest games with both combat and out of combat situations to see what non-combat items are purchased and how frequently. Those numbers would be used to adjust the non-combat items. At no time would they be just testing the purchase of items. That would be silly.

Hmm...I said I was done with this thread, but I just can't stay away.

You're right, I did misunderstand what you are proposing, but what you are describing still simply won't work. The effect of magic item selection won't make as big of a difference on a single combat as will dice variability. It's far, far too easy to mistake good or bad dice rolls for good/bad magic item selection. Who is going to run the same combat 20 or 30 times, keeping detailed records?

And even then you're only finding the optimum magic items for that combat. If the combat is against demons, the Dragonslaying sword will have the same value as a +1 sword. Nevermind non-combat items.

Sorry, this just won't work. At all. World of Warcraft can do it. D&D cannot.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Double post.

 

[5ekyu]

Hmm...I said I was done with this thread, but I just can't stay away.

You're right, I did misunderstand what you are proposing, but what you are describing still simply won't work. The effect of magic item selection won't make as big of a difference on a single combat as will dice variability. It's far, far too easy to mistake good or bad dice rolls for good/bad magic item selection. Who is going to run the same combat 20 or 30 times, keeping detailed records?

And even then you're only finding the optimum magic items for that combat. If the combat is against demons, the Dragonslaying sword will have the same value as a +1 sword. Nevermind non-combat items.

Sorry, this just won't work. At all. World of Warcraft can do it. D&D cannot.

Agree... And even if they did the bold, it would remain just as pointless as a single run thru with no records.

Seen this discussion play out may times on many forums for many different games in many different guises.

Some believe their is a "true value" and a "way to determine it" and of them some believe they know it and can do it while others think someone else can do it and they want it.

it is most prevalent on the point-buy games systems forums - hero etc. Some true believers who think their is a perfect math to solve the balance if they can just parse a new set of values and a new algorithm.

But after they have the perfect set or even the good enough set they then acknowledge that it needs to adjust for each setting for each campaign for each deviation from whatever whiteroom-of-sand they built their tower of math on.

balance in-play as opposed to balance on-paper and "value in-play as opposed to value on-paper results from the intersection of "need" and "have". So the value of a dragonslayer vs a giant slayer or even just a wand of fireballs or a restoration potions will vary massively from campaigns that run against the giants vs invasion of the lich lords undead hordes vs the tiamat series vs... vs... vs...

Its the encounter... not the math... that determines the value and an anti-toxin viial might be worth ten vorpal swords.

If i could wave a magic wish and make one change to most RPGs it would be to yank 90% of the crunchy support on item/trait balancing and replace it with good comprehensive advice, recommendations and examples of how decisions on encounters and story and campaign make the balance or break it and some good guidelines and benchmarks for new to medium experienced Gms to get their feet wet without game crashing blow-outs.

EDIT TO ADD: There is a concept called "false precision" and basically it boils down to no matter how accurate your measuring of ingredients is and no matter how precisely you mix them together and no matter how properly refined and pure those ingredients are... if your stove thermostat fluctuates wildly with swings og 50-100 degrees or more at a whim - all that precision does not wind up making you a good cake except by dumb chance when the temp just happens to work out right. **you are likely just as good with spending the money of cheap box cake recipe and a new thermostat.**

 

[Maxperson]

Hmm...I said I was done with this thread, but I just can't stay away.

You're right, I did misunderstand what you are proposing, but what you are describing still simply won't work. The effect of magic item selection won't make as big of a difference on a single combat as will dice variability. It's far, far too easy to mistake good or bad dice rolls for good/bad magic item selection. Who is going to run the same combat 20 or 30 times, keeping detailed records?

And even then you're only finding the optimum magic items for that combat. If the combat is against demons, the Dragonslaying sword will have the same value as a +1 sword. Nevermind non-combat items.

Sorry, this just won't work. At all. World of Warcraft can do it. D&D cannot.

I know you said you'd stay away, but this is an interesting side conversation, so hopefully I can Godfather you.

So a few things. First, It's not the same combat run many times. That doesn't simulate the game at all. It would be different encounters under different circumstances and the group would see over time what was effective and what wasn't. Second, you wouldn't only be finding the optimum items. Price is also a factor of what is optimum. If you find that 5 items are always being purchased and the rest aren't, those 5 get more expensive and the rest get cheaper. Eventually you will start seeing other items being purchased, and the 5 original items purchased less often. Then you can stop those items at that point and continue to lower the other items until you have most or all of them being purchased around the various playtests. It would take time, but you could do it.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I know you said you'd stay away, but this is an interesting side conversation, so hopefully I can Godfather you.

So a few things. First, It's not the same combat run many times. That doesn't simulate the game at all. It would be different encounters under different circumstances and the group would see over time what was effective and what wasn't. Second, you wouldn't only be finding the optimum items. Price is also a factor of what is optimum. If you find that 5 items are always being purchased and the rest aren't, those 5 get more expensive and the rest get cheaper. Eventually you will start seeing other items being purchased, and the 5 original items purchased less often. Then you can stop those items at that point and continue to lower the other items until you have most or all of them being purchased around the various playtests. It would take time, but you could do it.

That works great in World of Warcraft, where you've got the data volume to analyze objective outcomes. With a TTRPG:
1) You're relying on the survey respondents' subjective analysis of the results, including both the outcomes of the combats and the value of the items (in other words, respondents are going to rate their 'favorite' items more highly, leading to price lists in which popular, not just effective, items are priced higher).
2) Your N is far, far too low, especially given all the variables
3) You are depending on all these 'playtesters' doing this repeatedly, not just once. In other words, "Everybody please suspend your regular campaigns while you use all your tabletop to playtest these new rules, which most of you don't like anyway."

The end result is that a tiny handful of people do the majority of the testing and their subjective preferences end up determining prices.

I'm not arguing with the theory, just the practice.

 

[CapnZapp]

....aaaaaaand with that I think I'm going to sidestep out of this thread. It's been illuminating. I came into the thread convinced that magic marts are a bad idea, but hadn't really thought through magic item price lists. Now that I've had a chance to do so, and heard some of the arguments, I'm pretty convinced that's also a pretty bad idea.

Have fun storming the dungeon!

You are certainly free to like or dislike whatever you wish.

But that is not the issue here. As long as you don't try to deny others their preferred play styles, have a nice day

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[CapnZapp]

Sane does keep the pricing of 3.0 despite that it is far removed from 3.0, but 3.5 was in basically the same boat as Sane. Despite that, it worked for 3.5 well enough (and AFAIK still works for Pathfinder). That was my point.

As you say, Monte Cook did propose that but it was nonetheless a house rule. While you are correct that DR was a major thing in 3.0, it was only around for 2 or 3 years before 3.5 replaced it. Including Pathfinder, 3.5 has been the core of d20 for about 15 years now. 3.0 was a blip by comparison.

In 3.5, unless you count having to reach into your golf bag to change clubs as mattering, DR could easily not matter. Once you acquired a magic weapon, a silver weapon, a cold iron weapon, and an adamantine weapon, DR was easy to circumvent. Unlike 5e, 3.5 expected you to find or buy a magic weapon early on, and the other materials were even easier to obtain. Figuring out what to use was also trivially simple in most cases: cold iron for fey, silver for lycanthropes, etc.

It's probably fair to say that DR mattered more in 3.5 than in 5e, but only minimally so. I did play in a number of 3.5 campaigns where DR NEVER came up AT ALL.

But now you're losing track of the issue....?

I wasn't saying DR was huge then. I was pointing out how DR shaped the pricing structure of magic weapons.

A price structure that doesn't make sense within 5E.

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[CapnZapp]

Incorrect. Utility plays a part in the values I come up with in seconds. As do the circumstances surrounding the sale.

Good for you.

If you had then made the argument "I don't need a magic pricing supplement for 5th edition, I can do it myself, but I see the value in such a book for others" that would be okay.

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[CapnZapp]

Ahh, the "Nuh uh!" argument people use when they have no valid argument to make.

No, the very brief response you use to dismiss baseless accusations.

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